


With Every Breath

by Phoenixflames12



Series: An Endless Night: Extended Scenes [4]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Gotham's Writing Workshop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: February, 1928Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp and Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser name their first child, Faith Janet Beauchamp Fraser.





	With Every Breath

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read in partnership with my two longer WW2 AU stories, An Endless Night and Vergangenheit and is a peace offering for all the angst and pain that I've been throwing out into the world!

 

February, 1928

_It was there with every breath, my love._

 

The need to survive, the need to live.

 

She sits by the incubator and watches the thin, pale chest, criss-crossed with wires and tubes rise and fall, fall and rise, the slanted eyes that she hopes are blue squeezed tightly shut against the soft glow of the infrared lamp.

 

Exhaustion tugs at every crevice of her being, digging into her eyes, the weight of her head too heavy to endure, but the will to stay awake, to be present for each second of this fragile, new life is heavier still.

 

At her back, she can vaguely make out the swish of the nurse’s capes, the soft murmur of their voices, but they mean nothing to her.

 

All that matters now is the small ball of life fighting for every breath before her.

 

Tentatively, she reaches out a trembling finger to trace the curve of her daughter’s cheek through the glass, the skin butterfly thin and so pale as to be almost translucent.

 

_Oh, little love._

 

Ten fingers.

 

Ten toes.

 

Tiny wisps of wet copper curling over the soft curve of her baby’s skull fall softly against ears with the minutest of wings, blurring against the sudden veil of exhausted tears that cloud her stinging eyes, her heart singing with the Gaelic blessings that she knows Jamie will extol on her, their miracle child.

The sudden weight of a hand on her shoulder makes her turn, her heart lodging itself painfully in her throat.

 

Over bright cat eyes gleam down at her, a ghost of a smile that is tense with expectation crinkling in the corner of his mouth as he leans in for a kiss.

 

Large, thick hands cup her cheeks, pulling her slowly to her feet; the kiss slow and sweet, full of a desperate longing that burns at her heart, searing her soul with its intensity.

 

He looks exhausted.

 

His face is ashen, the skin over his cheekbones tight with strain, his lower lids smudged with fierce, dark bruising, lips dry and cracked from lack of fluid.

 

As she pulls back, her palms travelling down to rest on his crumpled battledress tunic, she hears his heart, the rhythm fast and frantic through the fabric.

 

He sways slightly as she lets go and she cocks an eyebrow at him, relief slowly shifting to worry, her heart thudding somewhere in her throat.

 

‘When did you last drink something?’

 

He shakes his head, licking his lips experimentally, not breaking her gaze.

 

‘Does it matter?’ His voice is hoarse and ragged in the quiet.

 

‘Or sit down? Christ, Jamie, you look dead on your feet!’

 

He shrugs her off impatiently, moving like a sleepwalker to the incubator.

 

‘How is she? How is…’

 

_They’d told him, then._

_After he’d forced his way into the room and held her through the wall of pain as the doctors descended on their precious child like a flock of white coated vultures, whispering sweet nothings to her in a broken voice that made no sense, he’d been bodily removed and told to wait outside._

‘She.’ The word chokes in her throat as she says it.

 

‘She’s a fighter, my love. And… And she’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.’

 

Something seems to seep out of him at that; a great, invisible weight pulling off his shoulders, so that they sag with relief as he takes another step forward and then turns to her, eyes wide and very blue.

 

‘Oh, Sassenach,’ he murmurs, pulling her close, each word choked with emotion. ‘Oh, _Claire._ I… I never dreamt…’

 

‘I know’, she murmurs into his hair, reaching up to draw him close, drinking in his hot, dense scent of fearful, unwashed man, his tears hot and fast and wet against her cheek. ‘I know.’

 

* * *

 

 

It is a long while before they find the strength to look at the baby, their baby again.

 

And yet when she does, she finds that she can’t stop looking at her. That she takes in every minute detail with the hunger of one starved.

 

_Ten fingers._

_Ten toes._

_Wisps of auburn hair just like her father._

_The almost imperceptible slant to her eyes that she hopes are blue._

_The small, snub nose, the thin cleft to her chin._

_Bonnie lass._

‘ _Mo cholom geal’_ , she hears Jamie murmur reverently, kneeling down in front of the glass; wide, exhausted eyes gleaming back at her. ‘ _Mo nighean ruaidh.’_

 

_My white dove. My red-haired lass._

‘What shall we name her, _mo nighean don?’_

 

The question is barely a whisper.

 

His eyes are shining as he reaches a hand out to her, pulling her down to him.

 

The name comes without conscious thought, but she knows as she says it, feeling the syllables roll lightly off her tongue that it is the right one.

 

‘Faith. Faith Janet Beauchamp Fraser.’

 

His answering smile is one that she will hold in her heart for the rest of her days.

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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